Egypt tops the world’s fastest growing mortgage markets and anticipates an expansion of 18.9% in mortgaged homes in 2017, Invest-Gate reports.

“Egypt is among the top three markets globally in 2017 featuring the fastest growth in mortgaged households including Nigeria and Algeria,” Euromonitor International report reads. The Euromonitor International is a world leader in strategy research for consumer markets.

According to the report, Africa and the Middle East regions are areas with growing populations in urgent need of new infrastructure projects and residential units to overcome house shortages.

Egypt’s mortgage market is affected by the great stock of affordable houses targeting the low- and middle-income classes, a decline in mortgage lenders, and loose regulations.

These factors, the report says, have resulted in the construction of 500,000 unlicensed houses annually as units are built first and legal permits are sought afterwards.

In efforts to put an end to such a phenomenon, the Central Bank of Egypt earmarked USD 570 mn in 2014 to finance low-income housing projects.

The report also expects that despite the country’s large population, less than 300,000 homes will be owned through mortgage in 2017. “The country is (still) an early-stage mortgage market,” it concludes.